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MODIS derived Sea Surface Temperature (SST) datasets

Citation

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Abstract

The datasets measure the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) of Australian oceans. They are derived products from MODIS (aqua) images
using NASA's SeaDAS image processing software. The extent of the datasets covers the entire Australian EEZ and surrounding
waters (including the southern ocean). The spatial resolution of the datasets is 0.01 dd. The datasets contain 126 monthly
SST layers between 2002 and 2012.

Author(s)

Date (publication)

Product Type

Topic Category

Keywords

Resource Language

English

Resource Character Set

utf8

Resource Security Classification

unclassified

Geographic Extent

North bound

-5.0

East bound

170.0

West bound

100.0

South bound

-60.0

Lineage

The SST datasets are derived products of MODIS (Aqua) images. SeaDAS (version 6.1) was used to process the MODIS data from
raw to L3 products. SeaDAS provides two SST products. The products presented here are sea surface temperature measured using
the 11 and 12 micron channels. The algorithm used is the standard algorithm (OBPG) (Franz, 2006). The sequences of processing
included:
1. raw - L1A,
2. L1A - L1B,
3. L1B - L2,
4. L2 - L3 (spatial) binning, and
5. L3 binning to L3 time-binning.
The first four steps were applied to all individual (daily) raw images. After completing the above steps for one-month-worth
images (around 300 images), in the fifth step, four weekly images were generated:
1. week1: from the 1st to the 7th of the month;
2. week2: from the 8th to the 14th of the month;
3. week3: from the 15th to the 21st of the month;
4. week4: from the 22nd to the last day of the month.
The four weekly images were exported as HDF files, then imported into ArcGIS and converted into ArcInfo grids. Next, the four
grids were mosaiced into a monthly image using the averaging method.
The above processes were repeated to generate the final 36 monthly datasets between 2009 and 2011.
Franz, B. 2006. Implementation of SST Processing within the OBPG, http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/DOCS/modis_sst/ (accessed:
10/10/2011).